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Crowe welcomes European Court Judgements on Tobacco Products

Dublin South West Sinn Féin TD, Seán Crowe, has welcomed the
European Court of Justice (ECJ) judgements on plain packaging for tobacco
products.

Crowe said that the decision has the potential to have huge
positive and far reaching health implications, but he also said that the ISDS
mechanism currently being discussed in the TTIP negotiations between the
European Union and the USA would potentially negate and undermine decisions
like this in the very near future.

Deputy Crowe said:

“We know that 1 in every 2 people who take up cigarettes die
from smoking related illnesses and an estimated 5,870 people die from smoking
related illnesses in Ireland every year.

“This unacceptable death toll, combined with other
cardiovascular and pulmonary medical conditions, means that as a society we
need to do everything in our power to discourage new people from getting
addicted to tobacco products and to prevent the proliferation and accessibility
of these products.

“Sinn Féin wholeheartedly supported the legislation that
would introduce plain packaging on tobacco products when it was being debated
in the Dáil and Seanad.

“That legislation was aggressively challenged by the tobacco
industry in the Courts.

“I particularly welcome the judgements of the ECJ that were
released this week, which uphold that the plain packaging Directive provides a
legal basis for Ireland and other countries to introduce standardised packaging
of tobacco products.

“The EU and USA are currently in negotiations around a
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that could potentially
undermine and negate positive decisions like this.

“The so-called ISDS mechanism, which is being negotiated as
part of TTIP, would allow massive multinational corporations to circumvent
local and national court decisions and to sue Governments in a secretive
international court.

“Decisions like these ones taken by the ECJ
would be superseded by decisions made in an unaccountable tribunal. This would
undermine initiatives like plain packaging on tobacco products and would
ultimately undermine the democratic decision making of Governments.”